The Astonishing Colour of After

Paperback, 480 pages

English language

Published March 22, 2018 by Orion Children's Books.

ISBN:
978-1-5101-0296-5
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(7 reviews)

Leigh Chen Sanders is absolutely certain about one thing: When her mother died by suicide, she turned into a bird.

2 editions

Surprised at the depth of this YA novel.

Obvious trigger warning for this due to suicide and depression.

I was pleasantly surprised by how much of this book takes place in Taiwan and really appreciated that Emily did not box the characters into a small space and instead sent them out into the world and described the locations. The magical realism in this was very well done and took me by surprise a few times. There is the obligatory romance that I feel like YAs always require, but while it is an important part of Leigh's life, it does not take over the story by any means. Leigh's journey to her mother's home is always the priority along with figuring out what he mother would want for her to know.

The writing was well done and the imagery and descriptions were fantastic. Leigh sees emotions in colors and she uses art to translate those colors into images. I …

Review of 'The Astonishing Colour of After' on 'Goodreads'

This book was almost a five star for me. It is a beautiful, quotable book. I would recommend it to some of my daughter's artist friends. It speaks of the before and after we experience when we lose people. As well as the sometimes secret expectations that we have of each other. These expectations can lead to confusion if not discussed and are a sometimes burdensome. It didn't keep me as engaged as I would have liked to have been all the through. It is still an impressive debut and should not go unnoticed. It must be said, the magical realism worked well in this work. As we know is not always the case.

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Subjects

  • Children's fiction
  • Color, fiction